Euro spot ‘so vital for Villa’

SKIPPER Olof Mellberg believes qualifying for Europe can help Aston Villa hold onto their top players – and attract new blood to the club in the summer.

David O'Leary has constantly played down talk of winning a UEFA Cup spot but Villa's 2-0 home win over Leeds pushed them up to eighth in the Premiership and within touching distance of that goal.

Leading scorer Juan Pablo Angel, who scored his 17th goal of the season against Eddie Gray's side, has already admitted he wants to see how much ambition Villa have before opening talks over a new contract.

A place in Europe can only help persuade the Colombian international to repay the faith shown in him by O'Leary by putting pen to paper on a long-term deal.

Mellberg believes Villa should now set their sights on such targets which seemed a million miles away after they crashed 4-0 away to Manchester United in early December and sank to 17th position.

The Swedish international said: "If we are in Europe next season it will help us to attract players. It's going to help people stay at the club so we've got to try and make the most of the situation.

"For the major part of the season we have just been trying to get out of the bottom half of the table Europe was not something we thought too much about.

"But now we are up in the top part of the table we've got a chance to achieve that .

"We have a big game at Fulham on Wednesday and if we get a good result there then I think we can definitely look upwards and we'll be in the pack with a chance for Europe."

Ronny Johnsen scored Villa's second goal his first for the club and Mellberg is hoping the veteran Norwegian international will decide to continue playing with Villa .

Mellberg said: "I hope Ronny will stay. It's up to him whether he wants to carry on playing. But he can still play in the Premiership, definitely. He did well against Leeds and in the other games he's played he's done really well".

While Villa can look forward to the final third of the season with optimism, the alarm bells are sounding increasingly louder for Leeds who remain six points adrift of safety after a sixth successive league defeat.

They can point to luck being against them at Villa Park with Didier Domi conceding a harsh-looking penalty after a challenge on Darius Vassell.

But hard-luck stories will not keep them in the top flight and they now face a massive clash with Wolves in midweek.

Striker Mark Viduka, back in the side after taking compassionate leave to be with his ill father in Australia, said: "It was a consolation to us that the other teams around us at the bottom lost.

"But we can't keep depending on other teams to play badly or to lose and hopefully in the game against Wolves we can make amends."